


Let the Only Sound be the Overflow

by cheerynoir



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Theon Greyjoy, Communication, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fix-It, LET THERE BE COMMUNICATION, Resentment, Robb Stark is a Gift, eventual understanding, irony's a bitch, thea greyjoy needs to be drunk(er) to deal with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheerynoir/pseuds/cheerynoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon Greyjoy kills a wildling, gets scolded like a child, and drinks like a bitter adult. It's not a good day.</p><p>Robb, well. Robb just wants to talk.</p><p>There is not enough liquor in the <i>world</i> for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Only Sound be the Overflow

Theon often thought that things would be easier if she had a cock, instead of a healthy appreciation for them. Her skill with a bow would be commended instead of scorned, her height would be common-place for a man, and Robb would not think to _scorn her for saving his crippled brother’s life_ if they stood on equal footing.

Yes, she thought, well into her cups behind the locked door of her chambers. Things would be easier, surely, if I were a man. A man would not be patronized for saving a child’s life – no one would scold _him_ for something like that. Even if _he_ was only a ward.

Fucking _Robb._

The thought came back to her, bitter and sharp. It bubbled up like gut-rot and refused to be ignored. So Theon took another drink and tucked herself more firmly into the nest of furs and blankets she’d made. After a while, the ale only fanned her resentment, her anger – her hurt – but it was the only thing left to do, so she drank and thought and thought and drank.

_Fucking Robb._

It all came back to that. Her thoughts were a darkening spiral, but that was a touchstone.

Scolded like a child, Gods, her blood boiled to think of it. I am not your wife, your sister, or your property, she wanted to tell him; do not pretend to command me. You are not my lord. I am a daughter of Pyke. I am a kraken. Your words are nothing to me, wolf pup. Your words are wind and—

Gods _damn_ him. 

There was a knock eventually, and Theon jerked out of her fitful, drunken doze with a start. She wiped the drool off her chinl and pushed the hair that came loose of her braid back behind one ear. The room was dim around her, the shadows long. The fire smouldered petulantly in the grate and she dragged herself out of bed long enough to stoke it back to life. There was another knock, louder this time, and Theon scowled at her fire. She added another log and drew the blankets around her shoulders like a cloak.

“No,” she said plainly, because if she moved too quickly the ground lurched up at her. Because the world spun a little faster, after this much ale.

Again the knocking. “No,” she said again, no louder. “I don’t want to deal with you. Stop.”

They did not.

“Theon – come on. I can hear you sulking.”

_Fucking Robb._

“Fuck off, my lord,” she muttered under her breath, because it felt good to say. So good, in fact, that she stumbled to the door and flung it open to say it again.

“Fuck-”

And then she actually looked at the little lordling, and the words died in her throat.

There was snow melting in his hair, and the wet of it ran down his cheeks and neck. There was colour high in his face from cold, and his eyes were very clear and very blue. He wore no gloves, but clasped his reddened hands in front of him, even as he shifted from foot to foot uneasily. He smelled like cold air and pine trees, and he brought a chill with him that made her draw her blankets closer, until she was bundled throat to heel. 

“What,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. Then she lifted the aleskin to her lips and drank, clutching her make-shift cloak about her with one hand. She wiped her mouth with the back of one hand and it was only through sheer force of will that she did not sway.

“Hi,” said Robb. His gaze focused on her only for a moment before flicking past. She shifted, drew the door a little closer to being shut. To make it easier to slam it in his face, she told herself. “Am I ... are you with someone?”

“Would it matter if I was? What do you want, my lord?”

“To talk, my lady,” and he met her eyes and tried to smile.

She laughed at him, and kept laughing as she turned her back and stalked back into her chambers. He flinched to hear it, she noticed, and did not fight back a slow, satisfied smile.

_Good._

“So talk,” she said, when he stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room and she, in turn, made herself comfortable in bed. She took another mouthful of ale before she corked the skin and tossed it aside. She did not offer him any, and he did not ask.

It occurred to her briefly that this situation – a lord and lady alone, unchaperoned, in a bedroom of all places – would probably send Septa Mordane into a fit. A laugh bubbled up in her throat and she swallowed it down. Not the time, or the place, though if her hunch was right, by the end of this conversation, she’d need a laugh.

“I …” but for all his keenness, Robb was tongue-tied. His clenched his jaw and his fists tight. To keep from fidgeting, she knew. It was not so long ago that he was a fat-cheeked boy with too many tells and a worryingly open face. And for all the years gone by, he still had too many tells.

Idiot boy.

When he only faltered and lapsed into quiet, she pinned him with a look and quirked an impertinent eyebrow. 

“You look a bit like the Queen, when you do that,” he blurted. Even he looked startled by his own admission. A touch of pink crawled into his cheeks.

“Do you think often of the Queen when you look at me, my lord?” she asked, a smirk curling the corner of her mouth.

“Only recently,” he admitted. He rubbed at the back of his neck and avoided her eyes. “Your tongues are both sharper than blades, I think. It’s … vexing.”

Theon scoffed, a low, throaty sound, and dropped flat onto her back. The mattress bouncing made her stomach roll, and she shut her eyes tight against the sickness that rose up in her. “If you’ve come to insult me,” she said to the ceiling, “the door is right there.”

“I didn’t …” she heard his sigh, low and tired, and she pointedly ignored the way it made her stomach clench. She had no reason to be guilty. She was not the unreasonable one. “I’m making it worse, aren’t I?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, my lord.”

“Stop that.” 

She propped herself up to look at him, and found the first flickers of anger in his face, in his furrowed brow and stormy eyes and thinned lips. It was nothing like this afternoon, where his rage had been hot and sharp, a blade freshly forged, but it was enough to make her bite the inside of her lip hard enough to hurt. For all he looked like Lady Catelyn, Robb looked most like his father when he was angry. It reminded her, just for an instant, of Pyke and the smell of wet wood as it burned; the sound of wind cracking the sails of a ship full and the taste of blood, because the sea was full of salt already, so what good would tears do a kraken?

But still, all the same, the instant passed and –

“Stop what?” she asked, and did not stop smiling. “My lord.”

He snarled and raked his fingers through his hair, a wild motion, sharp and jittery. And then he began to pace and she thought of wolves prowling.

“Stop doing that – calling me ‘my lord,’ like you’re some—”

“Hostage?” she finished, with a sweetness she learned from Sansa; there was steel beneath. A woman’s courtesy was her armour, but it could be her sword as well. “But, my lord, I thought I was to _know my place_? I am only a woman, after all, and a hostage besides, here by your father’s pleasure.”

She could not have done better if she had slapped him, though there was something in her that wanted to try. She wanted to twist the knife as he had – she owed him nothing, after all.

“I didn’t. Theon, I didn’t mean it like that,” said Robb. The flush had gone from his cheeks, and his eyes were wide and worried. He looked pained, though she could not tell whose words had put the look on his face – hers or his own.

The afternoon stretched between them; two dead wildings and words beside a stream that neither could take back.

“Didn’t you?” she asked, very softly. 

“How poorly do you think of me, that words said in the heat of the moment rewrite years of history?” he asked. “You—”

“Don’t,” Theon said. “Put this on me, Robb. I saved your brother’s life and you scolded me in front of your men like I was some wayward whore acting out of turn. That’s on you. I am not the one that is going to apologize for my actions when—”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Robb cut in. Theon fell quiet, startled. “Don’t you see that? I’m trying to apologize, Theon. Okay? Will you let me do that?” He ducked his head a little, met her eyes. He smiled again, a slight little thing, and she wanted to punch him.

She flopped back into bed instead and swallowed a mouthful of beer-flavored bile. “If you must,” she sighed.

“Thank you,” he said, and then was quiet again. She heard him take a deep breath, and then two. How fragile men are, she thought, squinting at the shadows that played across the ceiling. To need such a bracing to admit a wrong when it came easier than breathing to most women. She sat up again when she heard is footsteps, and watched as he tread a little closer.

He waited until she looked at him before he spoke. His eyes were very blue in the firelight. His lips were very red. Thea swallowed.

“I’m sorry, Theon. I wasn’t thinking clearly this afternoon. I didn’t … I didn’t mean to make you feel … inferior. I just … I was worried, and I was scared, and I took it out on you because you were there. And I shouldn’t have. That was wrong of me.” He licked his lips and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, that’s all. Thank you for saving Bran -- I don’t think I could ever say that enough. Thank you.”

Her stomach flipped and clenched, and there was an unfamiliar heat in her chest. Theon looked away and fiddled with the end of her braid. Her mouth tasted like ale and sour spit, and the heat of the furs pulled tight around her made sweat prickle her underarms and the backs of her knees. She focused on that, and not the heat she could feel crawling up her neck. It swept across her face like a plague. Theon wished for dragonpox – she hadn’t thought she was capable of blushing anymore.

“It’s fine,” she said. There were no other words, so she brushed it aside and hoped for the best. “It’s fine. Don’t…” mention it, she wanted to say.

“Is it?” asked Robb. He came closer, until his boots tread on the hem of her blanket-cloak and she could feel the heat rolling off him. His hand found her shoulder and she wondered when it had gotten so large. “Theon, is it settled? I really want us to be … I want us to go back to how it was before this mess. Could we do that?”

Gods, he dripped sincerity. She didn’t think Rickon could pull off a better pair of puppy-dog eyes.

“All right,” said Theon. She looked away. “Have a drink like a civilized person, Robb. We’re fine. You’re such a woman about these things.”

She watched from the corner of her eye as tension bled from him like pus from a wound. He laughed under his breath and reached past her for the skin of ale. He drank and moved as though he might sit beside her. But the situation seemed to catch up with him then and he swayed back, ever the lordling. He leaned against the wall near her bed instead, arms folded loosely and his shoulders relaxed. She watched the long line of his pale throat as he swallowed.

_Come sit with me,_ she could have said. _I’m so cold, Robb – warm me?_ She could have asked, and drawn him down onto the furs. He was not a boy anymore, not truly, and just looking at him reminded her of that.

“What?” he asked, and she flinched, caught in the act.

“Nothing,” she replied, and plucked the ale from his lax fingers. She drained the skin and tossed it languidly aside. “It’s nothing, Robb. I—”

She broke off when there was a whine from the doorway. Grey Wind and Shaggydog nosed the door open, and there was Rickon, clinging to Shaggy’s side and snivelling.

He was dirty and snot-streaked, an orphan in soiled velvets. 

Robb startled and went to him. He scooped the boy up, let the baby bury his face in his neck.

“I should,” said Robb helplessly, glancing toward the door.

She waved him off with a smirk. “Go then. You have other duties. I’ll still be here when you’re free.”

He flashed her a grin – so grateful for the little things, it seemed – and did not look back when he left. Theon did not watch him go.

She sighed heavily instead, and buried her face in her pillow.

Fucking _Robb._

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally a tumblr prompt ("The book scene with bran and the wildlings. What does Robb threaten her with and how does she respond and feel?") That I cheated with terribly by only showing the aftermath.
> 
> And now it's probably going to be a 'verse. My inbox is always open for more prompts. Come say hi.
> 
> Also, thanks a million to the lovely janie_tangerine for giving this a look over and putting up with my flailing.


End file.
